Let the Indiana State Politifest Begin

get ready for a rumble

The governor of my state, in his speech to the General Assembly last night, offered everything from appeals to pity (complete with children) to calls to reform education and local government in accordance of the Report from Two Old Men Whom You Never Heard Of.

The Democrats will have none of it, even though they are now in the minority, because they want more jobs whose taxes will pay for whatever reforms survive. The Republicans will have none of it, because the governor's call for abolition of townships robs them of jobs for their low-level members. Besides, there are bigger fish to fry: The biennial state budget and the reapportioning of Congressional districts.

Reforms can go to hell this year. The governor was a fool to try to introduce them at such a time as this. Who gives a damn whether his term is running out (he can't run for another), and whether he does have ambitions for the office once held by his old boss, Bush the Younger. He governs a loser state; and his family name is not Palin; so he isn't going to get it.

no, marge, he isn't a friend

There is no priority of these programs from the state. State Superintendent Tony Bennett is not a friend of the arts.

A pause of several minutes to recover from bout of laughter.

I am sure the music professor, quoted in my campus paper, does not think that is funny. But let's face it: The guy sounds like Marge Simpson, oblivious to everything that does not relate to him. I don't like the growing loss of funding for libraries (including my own town's); but I have to live with it. And as for the loss of funding for the arts, what do you expect from a bunch of low-grade corporate stooges elected to high state office?

hunt down the po' folks some other way!

My own issue is that the cops in southwestern Indiana, which have lots of poor whites cooking meth for quick cash or in order to destroy themselves, want to make pseudoephedrine available only by prescription, as introduced in House Bill 1030. (An identical Senate bill was dropped, and a less draconian alternative in Senate Bill 394 has been introduced.)

The present system of registration for every purchase of pseudoephedrine-based cold medicine is not working as intended. There are too many ways around the system. The meth plague is now only growing again, but the system has made the plague more attractive to little apelings seeking lots of money. So otherwise ordinary folks are cashing in on the meth plague.

So, now the cops in the poor-white parts of the State want to make things worse by corrupting ordinary physicians, for that is what a prescription-only law will bring about. It is time to ignore their appeals to pity about meth babies, and stop their nonsense before they make things worse.